Europe’s Decline Bodes Ill for Its Jews

In his book, The End of Europe (reviewed here in Mosaic), James Kirchick addresses the crisis the continent has found itself in as a result of economic stagnation, the collapse of cultural self-confidence, an inability or unwillingness either to limit immigration or to integrate immigrants and their descendants, and an increasingly threatening Russia. Discussing the book with Jonathan Silver, Kirchick examines the underlying causes of the crisis and its particularly deleterious impact on Jews, who are the targets of the far left, the far right, and Islamists—with the last group frequently using violence against them. Germany, meanwhile, in a tragic historical irony, has—motivated by guilt over its own history of anti-Semitism—brought thousands of anti-Semites into its borders, with predictable consequences. (Audio, 47 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

Read more at Tikvah

More about: Anti-Semitism, Europe, European Jewry, Immigration, Politics & Current Affairs

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF